October had delightfully spread over into November. The weather had obligingly stayed good, and although our Carters had been at Valhalla more than a month, they had experienced no real bad days.
Nippy, frosty nights had put Mr. Carter wise to the many cracks that he must stop up. Weather strips must be put on windows and doors, panes of glass must be puttied in. Suspicious stains on walls and ceilings warned him of leaks, but he had to wait for a rain to locate them. He found himself almost as busy as he had been before his breakdown, but busy in such a different way.
“I’m glad it’s Saturday! I think I won’t work today,” he had remarked to his wife at about the same time Nan and Lucy were having their talk. “Come and walk in the woods with me.”
That lady had graciously consented, if he promised not to go far and to lift her over fences.
“I think I’ll wash my hair today; and darn the stockings; and go over the accounts; and write some letters; and read the Saturday Evening Post,” said Douglas as she and Helen dressed hurriedly. Their little attic room was hot in summer and cold in winter.
Douglas had been thinking a great deal about her ride with the count. Had he only meant to tease her? Was he trying to flirt with her? Did she like him at all or did she in a way distrust him? She asked herself all of these questions. Of course she liked him! Why should she distrust a man because of the way his moustache grew? Of course he was teasing her, and who could help teasing a silly goose of a girl who sat on the roadside and bawled until her nose was disgracefully red, and then insisted it was all because her little brother had aided and abetted in the crime of putting fleas down a little girl’s neck? He had made a good guess about Lewis Somerville, because no doubt her father had told him that she and Lewis had been chums from the time they were babies.
“I only hope I will be able to make up to him for my discourtesy by being very polite to him the next time I see him,” she thought.
“Count de Lestis is coming to lunch with us today,” said Helen, almost as though she had been reading her sister’s mind. “Father asked him.”
“That’s good! Isn’t it nice for Father to have such a congenial friend?”
“And Mumsy! She enjoys his visits so much. I am going to try and have a scrumptious luncheon, but I tell you I am going to leave mighty little of it to Chloe.”